The Thicket

July 1, 2013
Set in early 20th-century East Texas, this satisfying novel from Edgar-winner Lansdale (Edge of Dark Water) takes 16-year-old Jack Parker to darker places than he ever imagined. After Jack’s parents die of smallpox, his preacher grandfather determines to deliver Jack and his 14-year-old sister, Lula, to an aunt who lives across the Sabine River. While waiting for a ferry, they’re attacked by a band of men, who kill the grandfather, nearly kill Jack, and kidnap Lula. Having lost most of his family, Jack doesn’t intend to lose her and sets out after them. Soon he encounters an undersized bounty hunter, Shorty, and Eustace Cox, the grave-digging son of an ex-slave, who agree to help him rescue his sister for a price. As the body count rises, the narrative grows steadily more grim (if, at times, hilarious). Lansdale’s humor and skill at characterization come across well, though at moments the reader wishes for just a little more background detail. Agent: Danny Baror, Baror International.

August 15, 2013
If the Coen brothers' film version of True Grit gave readers an appetite for more underage period Western bounty hunting, Lansdale (Edge of Dark Water, 2012, etc.) is eager to oblige. "[O]ne thing for sure, this ain't your day," the retiring deputy of Sylvester, Texas, tells Jack Parker. He doesn't know the half of it. After Jack's parents are carried off by smallpox, his grandfather packs Jack, 16, and his sister, Lula, 14, onto a wagon and heads for their Aunt Tessle's in Kansas. The wagon makes it only halfway across the Sabine River on a suspiciously expensive new ferry when three men spoiling for a fight shoot Caleb Parker and the ferryman, leave Jack in the river and ride off with Lula. Jack's obligation to rescue his sister is clear, but the means aren't, until he runs into tracker Eustace Cox--part black, part Comanche, and maybe a hint of Parker mixed up in him--and his buddy Reginald Jones, a philosophical dwarf everyone calls Shorty. Offering to swap the deeds for his family's land for some timely assistance in dealing with "Cut Throat Bill," "Nigger Pete" and "Fatty Worth," Jack interests the unlikely pair in his quest. Soon enough, they're joined by Jimmie Sue, a whore with a heart of flesh; Winton, ex-rancher, ex-bounty hunter and ex-sheriff; Spot, his assistant back in the Sylvester jail; and Hog, Eustace's hog. The many shaggy conversations, anecdotes and back stories that emerge among the group gradually reveal to Jack what he's going to have to do to rescue Lula, what sort of allies he's enlisted for the job and what sort of person he is himself. Alternately violent and tender, with a gently legendary quality that makes this tall tale just about perfect.

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Starred review from September 1, 2013

The Parkers are a moderately successful family of East Texas dirt farmers in the early 1900s, until the parents are struck down by smallpox and the children, Jack and Lula, start on a cross-country trek to Kansas with their grandpa. At the Sabine River ferry, a second tragedy strikes when a band of outlaws kill Grandpa and kidnap 14-year-old Lula. Jack follows their trail, determined to rescue his sister. As he makes his way deeper into outlaw territory, Jack puts together as unlikely a band of anti-outlaw ruffians as ever graced the pages of a novel. A midget sharpshooter, a half-breed tracker and his pet hog, an escapee from a house of prostitution, a renegade sheriff and part-time bounty hunter--each joins the quest, puts his/her life on the line, and shares a personal story in the bargain. VERDICT Lansdale (Edge of Deep Water) offers up a coming-of-age Western adventure as captivating as the best of Larry McMurtry and written in a style reminiscent of Mark Twain. With intriguing, sometimes bumbling characters and storytelling laced with bravado, good humor, action, and heart, all set in the wilds of Texas during the early days of the oil boom, this title cannot help but captivate readers.--Thomas Kilpatrick, Martin, TN

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2013
The Bard of East Texas is back, this time with the turn-of-the-twentieth-century coming-of-age tale of 16-year-old Jack Parker and his 14-year-old sister, Lula. Still shocked by the sudden deaths of their parents from smallpox, they see their grandfather murdered by outlaws, who then abduct Lula. The same outlaws have killed the sheriff Jack hopes will rescue Lula, and Jack must turn to bounty hunters Eustace Cox and Shorty. Eustace is a black man who carries a giant shotgun; his constant companion is a 600-pound feral hog. Shorty is a dwarf with an attitude who was taught to shoot by Annie Oakley. Their bond is the discrimination they face, and they are willing to chase the outlaws into the primordial and lawless deep woods of East Texas' Big Thicket. Lansdale's premise seems borrowed in part from Charles Portis' True Grit. But anyone who knows Lansdale knows he will put his own spin on the material. He has been writing brilliantly about East Texas for three decades (in both historical fiction and his contemporary series starring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine), but never has the region appeared stranger or more violent than it does here. The oil boom has begun, and Jack, a naive and pious farm boy, is introduced to boomtowns, brothels, lynchings, and all manner of new things. Memorable characters, a vivid sense of place, and an impressive body count make The Thicket another Lansdale treasure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)